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Saturday, December 22, 2012

As of this week registration opened for the very first RTC Europe which will be held in the beautiful city of Delft, the Netherlands. To get the obvious questions out of the way first:

- Language will be all english.
- Yes, Delft has coffeeshops too (and some of them actually serve coffee)
- Yes, as a foreigner you can still access those (laws forbidding that were recently overturned)
- No, I do not think it's very polite (or appreciated) to get stoned out of your mind and have the munchies during classes...

Now that we have this dealt with, let's focuss on the more important stuff.
Us Europeans aren't really used to having high-end conferences like these. When I went to AU this year I had to defend myself quite a lot for making those expenses. I usually responded by asking which education the other party followed this year, and how well they would rate it.

The RTC Committee invited fifty of the worlds most recognised Revit experts to enter submissions for classes and sessions. Approx 1/4 of those (the best of the best) will teach at RTC. Starting at experienced level, upping to real Guru-sh#t.

If there even is a "regular" course anywhere in Europe that you can take all year around, offering this kind of expertise: let me know. I'll put it in my budget for next year. And gladly travel halfway across europe for.
But over here in Holland, you can get a starters course (AOTC, which suuuuuucks) and a follow-up. The follow up suuucks (slightly less) too if you have any real-life experience and is 800,- for 2-3 days.

So basically this is the deal to layout for the powers-that-be:
- This is the first time EVER there is an opportunity in the entire European continent to actually learn from the best and brightest in the world for your primary tool.

- It's only slightly more expensive then a regular no-good-to-anyone Revit course. It's only 1400,- for 2 days conference and including 3 nights of hotel accomodation. Seeing as you almost always pay around 100,- for a night hotel accomodation it's really only just 1100,- for a two day conference.

- Best part: it's only one workday lost. The conference is on friday and saturday. Fly from anywhere in Europe thursday evening and you'll be in Delft around 10pm. That means that the extra expenses in registration fee are partly covvered by you studying in your free time...

- There will be some awesome classes with even better tutors! Here is a brief extremely personal summary of the line-up:

David Conant will be teaching on the API,

Kelly Cone will have two classes (FYI: this is the guy at Beck keeping Aaron "Twiceroadsfool" Maller in line which HAS to mean something...),

RFO's own Julien Benoit is teaching a class about the use of BIM beyond design,

Matt Jezyk will be unveiling super top secret stuff about self aware families

I will be teaching a class there about Revit and IFC Interoperability and have been invited to join a panel discussion on building National Standards. Unfortunately for Matt my class is scheduled against his, so I want to apologise in advance to him for the embarassingly low amount of people attending his class...

(just kidding, totally sick of that one. To whom ever is making the schedule: pretty pretty pretty pleeeeaaaase change this. I even registered to his class, just to be on the safe side in case the schedule does get tossed)

Anyway, the point being: this is going to be the best learning experience you have ever been to, completely overheating your puny brains! Space is limited to 200 registrations, so I would very much encourage you to act fast! Sign up NOW!!

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Upon returning from Autodesk University I was in a Loooong planeflight. Got time to think about my first AU and which class I liked best. Due to my surprisingly mellow hangover my thoughts even were coherent too! (note to self: jelloshots actually do contain alcohol and mixing them with Corona, Heineken, vodka and red-sparkly-drinks-which-I-have-no-idea-of-what-it-actually-was might not be a good idea)

I'd have to go with the class I attended dealing with masses, taught by Marcello Sgambelluri and Kelly Cone. Frankly, I've seen classes that better connect to my day-to-day reality. I've seen classes that were better conveying technical Revit stuff. I've seen classes that gave me more insight in what is to come for the next upcoming years...So why the hell is this one the best one might ask?INSPIRATION!Watching Marcello hop up and down when he got to the cool parts and then watching Kelly translate this into a real-life example (even though I will probably never do that type of projects) was mind-blowing. It got me into that state where you just feel the lightning bolts inside your head firing up the most powerful machinery mankind has, and kick my imagination into overdrive.
That night I was discussing the class with Jay Zallan over a beer (or two) and I was still in that zone. Random thoughts and ideas bursting out of every fibre in my brain, connecting to each other, making plans and forming ideas that will keep me occupied for months and months trying to recreate them...

That got me thinking on the plane. What is inspiration? I see it like this:
Think of your mind as a wasteland. A vast, endless stretch of desert. Nothing growing there. Over time, with lots of work on fertilising the ground, watering your crop and hard labor on your lands you can cultivate a part of it. That's the process of education.
Now every once and a while it will rain. Not much, and certainly not often. But when it does, magic happens. Out of nowhere, the most beautiful flowers and plants will grow on parts of the desert that you always thought were dry and dead. And suddenly you find yourself in an oasis of green, newly explored land with endless new possibilities.
That, to my humble opinion, is inspiration. It will be there, and if you act fast you will be able to hold on to most of it. However, the smell of fresh rain in the morning will fade away and always make you long for the next time it happens...

So thanks to Kelly and Marcello for making it rain in my head. That, and that alone, made the whole thing money well spent.

Until next time! For now, I can still smell the rain. And with that, I'm off to an early night already looking forward to the hours I will spend, lying awake and mentally exploring the new found possibilities in my mind.